Mike DeVries blogged about LibraryThing.com last week. It’s an online book catalog. (He warned it was addictive and he was right. I’ve spent some time on and off this last week entering most of my library.)

I was a little obsessive about seeing how many books I share in my library with others. Assuming others were as well, it seems like that would be a good meme. So, below, I have posted the top five other people who I have books in common with — I already recognize a few of these names from the blogosphere. I’d encourage anyone to enter their books and post the top 5 they share with, but specifically I’d ask the bloggers below to continue the meme.

Steve McCoy (blog/library): 93 books (Dude has 1700 books…probably going to be in the top 5 of a lot of people.)
Rob Merrill (library): 89 books
Mike DeVries (blog/library): 82 books (no surprise after seeing some of the books he’s been reading the last year or so)
Pat Loughery (blog/library): 72 books (I’m familiar with Pat through PlanterBlogs.com.)
Roger Overton (blog/library): 69 books

Ben Arment got his hands on the Catalyst Brochure for this year. Ben isn’t excited about the lineup, but I think it looks pretty darn good: Andy Stanley, Kevin Carroll, John Maxwell, Louie Giglio, Donald Miller, Rick McKinley, John Stott, Marcus Buckingham, George Barna, and Gary Haugen.

Hey Catalyst, I know you’ve read this blog before. Whatever happened to that “Free Registrations, Housing, and Transportation for Brand New Churches in Washington Named Pathways” deal you used to offer?

NT Wright is a book writing machine these days. I just ran across Simply Christian, which was published this month. Yet another one to add to the wish list.

I just did some calculations, and if my wish list were printed out and the pages placed end to end, it could circle the earth three times. Not to mention that the stack of books I already have that are waiting to be read could almost reach the moon if stacked up.

The goal of a disciple of Jesus is relationship, not perfection.

In Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight uses this phrase to introduce a chapter. Though some might need to stop and think about it, I would imagine that most Jesus followers would not struggle with that statement. He explains it further on the next page:

a disciple is someone who engages Jesus as a person by trusting him, and because of that relationship, begins to live out the virtues Jesus talks about. It all begins here, in this order, and if it doesn’t begin here, it doesn’t begin at all.

While this concept might not be strikingly different from what most Christians hold, I would suggest that if this is truly embraced, it would cause us to rethink how we go about faith in a community. Combined with some other conversations I’ve had recently, this idea has my mind churning. Here’s some questions I’m tossing around as I’m thinking about this…

-How can we truly model this idea in our relationships with others? Most of us are typically hesitant to open up about our flaws to others in fear that they will think less of us. Every time we do so, we are choosing to sacrifice relationship for an image of being nearer to perfection that we actually are.

-Where is the boundary for a pastor choosing to be authentic? Pastors are supposed to be vulnerable, and yet are cautioned to show discretion in what they do share about themselves. Is this creating a culture that once again inhibits relationship at the cost of perfection?

-What does this mean for conversion? What expectations, if any, should be placed on someone who decides they want to become a follower of Jesus? If discipleship is purely a relational thing, doesn’t that mean that conversion is just agreeing to enter into a relationship and see where it goes, trusting that a relationship with Christ will be what transforms people? Is it fair to expect a couple to stop living together, or a homosexual to stop practicing, or an alcoholic to stop drinking, before they enter into a relationship with Jesus?

Introducing… inbreaking.com

I’ve become a fan of the social bookmarking websites that are springing up such as Digg and del.icio.us. I’ve found some of notable and helpful links through what others have posted on these sites. So, when I stumbled on a digg lookalike script called pligg, I decided to give it a try and inbreaking.com is the result. Inbreaking is social bookmarking site specifically designed for followers of Jesus who are pursuing the inbreaking kingdom of God.

For those who aren’t familiar with social bookmarking, here’s a quick summary. (There is a longer description of how it can be used on the inbreaking blog.) Any user can register and submit a link of interest. Each link can be voted on by other registered users. Once a link has received enough votes, it will be ‘published’ to the front page.

I’m sure there are still some kinks to be worked out, but I think the site is ready to be used by the masses. I’d like to invite readers of this blog to start using the site, and to help spread the word by posting about it on your own blog. The more people that use the site, the more valuable it becomes to all.

I was a little confused by Digg the first time I saw it, so there is no shame if you don’t understand right away. Again, I’d point you to this general summary, but feel free to leave me a comment if you need something clarified about the benefits of such a site, or how it works.

One of the things that has struck me in the process of raising children is just how much I hear about what they suggest is best for your child. No one really knows who they are. When we were at the hospital, we kept hearing nurses and doctors tell us about they. As the hospital personnel referred to they, they clearly weren’t part of they. If they aren’t they, then who is?

(Thank you for continuing to read past that last paragraph, because there actually may be a point coming.) I read Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner this week. The book is based on the research of economist Steven Levitt, and the introduction claims that neither his work, nor this book, have a unifying theme.

I did find there to be one unifying theme that made the book so enjoyable. It’s all about unconventional thinking. Perhaps that’s why I enjoyed it. Most every chapter presents a few commonly held understandings, shows statistically why those understandings are inaccurate, and then suggests a more accurate understanding. It’s about questioning what they say, because oftentimes, they are wrong.

(This is a continuation of the revernaculation series, which I intend to pick up from time to time. Here are the previous posts: go to heaven, relationship with Jesus and knows the word.)

It is a shame that the word Torah is commonly translated today as the “Law”. This poor translation is one of the biggest challenges followers of Jesus face in understanding the work of God in history.

The Torah is sometimes known as the first five books of the Old Testament. That’s not a bad understanding, but it is more than that as well. The word Torah has its roots in the Hebrew word yarah, which roughly means “to cast, throw, or shoot”. It later came to mean “to teach”. So, the basic idea of the Torah is that it is a way, or a direction, for living. Unfortunately for us today, the word Law carries a connotation of restriction, which is a very different idea.

The New Testament writers chose to use the word ‘nomos’ to describe the Torah. Nomos did carry the idea of civic law, but it also had a secondary meaning worth noting. As the gods of mythology declared their will for how people were to live, it was called the nomos. So, again, nomos brings the idea of “way of living”.

To see Torah as “God’s way of living” greatly enhances our understanding of God’s work in the world today. Romans 10:4 describes Jesus as the goal (”end” is what most translations use, but it isn’t a good translation) of the Torah - he lived in the way of God.

This also gives us a much better understanding of one of Jesus’ key teachings in Matthew 22:34-40. Here, Jesus describes how the whole point of the Torah is that we would Love God, and Love Others. The Torah is not simply a list of restrctions so that we can love God and others. Instead, it is points us in the direction of loving God and others.

This completely reframes my understanding of Scriptures and the work of God. It is so much more beautiful, and it is for this reason that I’m revernaculating Law right out of my scriptural vocabulary and replacing it with “way of God”, or simply, Torah.

For anyone who is interested, here is a link to a teaching at Pathways where I explored this idea more deeply. Also, here is a link to a great perspective on the Torah from The Lost Message of Jesus, by Steve Chalke and Alan Mann.

This past weekend, we stole Rob Bell’s idea and did a silent sermon. Rather than listen to a sermon, those in our worship gathering reflected on thoughts shared on the screen. I’ve involved in a few different settings now where we used this, and it has been a meaningful experience every time.

If you’d like to watch the sermon, it is available for viewing over at PathwaysBlog.

(Special thanks to Steve Carter who passed it along to Berto who passed it along to me a few years ago.)

I can’t believe I’m saying this… I think I enjoy yardwork.

I’ve never liked it before. The yard was always that stupid thing that required maintenance to stay attractive — and attractive is a very relative term here.

But I have a new appreciation for it being in the Northwest. I trimmed back dead growth from last year yesterday, and found new growth peeking out. All over our yard, infant leaves are stretching toward the sky again. I could almost be content sitting there watching them grow - as long as I was in range of a WiFi connection.

Being aware of spring is giving me a refreshing anticipation of Easter. The new life reaching out of the soil is a very fitting reminder of what Easter is about. The geological and the religious seasons are crashing into each other — and I’m happy to be standing right in the middle of it.

I marvel at how NT Wright to write so much, so well, and so thoughtfully. The Last Word is one of hos most recent publications and it continues the trend. The subtitle pretty well sums up what the book is about: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture.

The first two-thirds of the book lay out a lot of the groundwork of his reasoning, but it is the last third of the book where he lays out some of his conclusions and direction on where to go with them this makes this book worthwhile. As a final teaser to those who haven’t read the book, here are just a few of his thoughts from the last third of the book that I found especially meaningful:

Pg 98 - Deconstruction of standard ways of reading texts is by no means always a negative or destructive thing to do; it may have the effect of jolting us out of comfortable half-truths to see something which is really there in the text and to which we had not previously paid attention.

Pg 112 - Genuine historical scholarship is still the appropriate tool with which to work at discovering more fully what precisely the biblical authors intended to say. … Real, fresh, historical reading of the Bible, measured rigorously by the canons of real historical work, can and do yield fresh insight.

Pg 115 - We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to be reminded where it has come from and where it is going to, and hence what our own part within it ought to be.

Pg 134 - If it is part of the privilege and duty of each Christian to study scripture, and to read it devotionally, it is important that the wider church should be able to hear what individual readers are discovering in the text. … The church needs to facilitate, through small groups, and other means, this bring of particular viewpoints to the attention of the whole body, both so that the larger community may be enriched and so that maverick or clearly misleading readings can be gently and appropriately corrected.

Pg 138 - If, therefore, those called to office and leadership roles in the church remain content merely to organize and manage the internal affairs of the church, they are leaving vacuum exactly where there ought to be vibrant pulsating life. Of course Christian leaders need to be trained and equipped for management, for running of the organization. … But how much more should a Christian minister be a serious professional with it comes to grappling with scripture and discovering how it enables him or her, in preaching, teaching, prayer and pastoral work, to engage with the huge issues that confront us as a society and as individuals.

Pg 140 - The Western church has for some generations allowed a dangerous “separation of powers,” according to which scripture is taught by professional academics while the church is run by clergy who, with noble exceptions, rely on secondhand and increasingly outdated understandings of scripture itself.

I got a copy of the Jewish Publication Society Torah Commentary on Exodus in the mail today. It is a $65 book, but I found one used for $20 on Amazon last week. I’m thrilled about it even though about half the pages are crumpled some on the top.

I already own the Genesis commentary from this series, and it’s been very meaningful to see the Torah through a Jewish perspective. I find that I often read back my own Christian interpretations to the Torah, and there is great insight to be found in seeing them apart from that.

While rereading Blue Like Jazz, this quote jumped out at me. It resonates with me, but I’ve probably also been guilty of what he says:

Here are the things I didn’t like about the churches I went to. First: I felt like the people were trying to sell me Jesus. I was a salesman for a while, and we were taught that you are supposed to point out all the benefits of a product when you are selling it. That is how I felt about some of the preachers I heard speak. They were always pointing out the benefits of Christian faith. That rubbed me wrong. It’s not that there aren’t benefits, there are, but did they have to talk about spirituality like it’s a vacuum cleaner. I never felt like Jesus was a product. I wanted him to be a person. Not only that, but they were always pointing out how great the specific church was. The bulletin read like a brochure for Amway. They were always saying how life-changing some conference was going to be. Life-changing? What does that mean? It sounded very suspicious. I wish they would just tell it to me straight rather than try to sell me on everything. I felt like I got bombarded with commercials all week and then went to church and got even more.

While reading The Witness of Preaching, by Thomas Long, this morning, I came across an idea I have never seen before. He describes how every sermon should have both a focus and a function.

The focus is what is often called the thesis statement, or the big idea. It is a single sentence that sums up the controlling idea of the sermon. This is a pretty common idea in most preaching books and I’ve run across it many times.

The function was a new idea to me. He describes it as “what the preacher hopes the sermon will create or cause to happen for the hearers.” Further on, he says, “The function statement names the hoped-for change.” What a great added perspective to bring to preparation when teaching or preaching.

It has been interesting to me that on the ebay atheist blog (any pastor should be reading this, btw), one of Hemant’s critiques is that many of the sermons he has heard seem to just dig in to the Bible without actually trying to apply it and make sense of it for him. Most pastors would agree what the goal is to transform lives…not just to make a point. With that in mind, why wouldn’t one spend time trying to define the function of a teaching they do in any environment?

I’ve been in several settings recently where the topic of what gives someone authority has come up. It has been quite eye opening to see what a diversity of views people have about this subject. On one end, some believe that authority comes with position — they might not want to say that outright, but that’s what they think. On the other side, there are those who believe that authority can only come through community, and no single person’s voice should carry more weight than others.

It is probably because of these conversations that this quote from Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Modernity really grabbed me:

“When the authorities are many, they tend to cancel each other out, and the sole effective authority in the field is one who must choose between them. It is by courtesy of the chooser that a would-be authority becomes an authority. Authorities no longer command; they ingratiate themselves with the chooser; they tempt and seduce.”

Interesting stuff. With so many voices speaking, the greatest authority is the one choosing which voice to listen to. If that is true, more than ever before, what others think of you matters as much as, and perhaps more than, what you have to say.

For most, that might seem simple and obvious. We would tend to say that of course someone has to think you are credible if they are going to hear what you have to say. But I think it has to push beyond that. It is not just credibility anymore…it is image. Bottom line, people who have the largest platform to speak from are the ones that others think are cool.

Everyone loves to talk about Bono and how he has rallied so much attention, and hopefully action, toward Africa. Bono has such a voice because he has the credibility from his own work in Africa combined with the image of his work with U2. It is the blending of both that causes people to listen. A granola looking aid worked (sorry to stereotype) who has given years to Africa might be quickly dismissed by many merely because of her stringy hair. Stephen Tyler would be dismissed because his image of a rockstar (and being Liv’s dad) combines with no known action toward an actual cause.

For those who follow Jesus, this idea can be troubling. It challenges some of our notions of what it means to be a humble servant of God who just let him “shine through” us. We point out, “He must increase, I must decrease” (John 3:30). And yet I wonder, is it possible to decrease your self and increase your voice at the same time? Is it possible to shape the brand of an individual or a community, and to combine it with credible action, so that those who are choosing who to listen to will listen to us?